NiCoP nanoparticles encapsulated in cross-linked graphene aerogel to efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

The structure of a cheap and high-efficient electrochemical catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) plays an essential impact in producing updatable hydrogen energy. Herein, we introduce a facile way to synthesize graphene aerogel inlaid with NiCoP nanoparticles (NiCoP-NPs@GA), which used seaweed biomass as precursors through a phosphorization route. In this work, graphene oxide (GO) with thin layer structure and carbon aerogel (CA) skeleton with a three-dimensional (3D) structure were connected in series to form a 3D-graphene aerogel (GA) as a composite material for conductive matrix. In addition, NiCoP nanoparticles (NiCoP-NPs) are uniformly encapsulated in GA nanoflakes, and the particles size can be controlled by the nanopores of the GA nanoflakes. The excellent 3D-GA matrix contains numerous open pores which can effectively circumvent volume expansion and aggregation of the NiCoP-NPs. Compared with NiCoP bulk, the NiCoP-NPs@GA demonstrated the advantages of larger specific surface areas and better HER overpotential function of only 109 m V with an operational density of 10 mA/cm2, along with a less Tafel gradient of 63 mV/dec in 0.5 M H2SO4. Our protocol opens a new avenue for synthesis of many transition metal catalytic makings and provides a preliminary research for their potential function in industry.